Abstract

The segmented mirror geometry has acquired popularity over the past few years. The Keck Telescope at Mauna Kea in Hawaii has a 10-m primary mirror. The Lockheed Active Mirror System is a 30-cm adaptive mirror which provides partial turbulence compensation in solar observations. Both mirrors have an array of closely packed hexagonal segments, 36 segments for the Keck primary and 19 segments in the Lockheed mirror. In order to achieve a diffraction-limited performance (without atmospheric turbulence), the mirror segments must be aligned, yielding a smooth figure across the aperture.

© 1992 Optical Society of America